The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Chapter 2854: Going to War (1)

Standard Terra Calendar 980.M41, Tempest Sector, Saint Caspalen Diocese, Venoix System, Venoix IV

“Kay, Transi, you lead your respective squads to guard the two exits of the manor. Ter, your tech squad, deploy servo-skulls to establish a surveillance zone. Draiseth, see that windmill over there? Take your men and set up a machine gun nest on it. Armored vehicles, stay in the courtyard, ready to move at any time.”

After hearing the squad leaders' responses, Hayes put the brand-new communicator back on his chest, then looked up at the building.

This was a mansion, with a distinct Ecclesiarchy style. Golden vines coiled around the windows and the front door inlaid with swirling silver patterns, and there was a huge aquila, but the bloodstains on the floors and door panels marred the beauty somewhat.

“Uncle, this house is awesome. The owner must be a nobleman, right?”

“I told you, use ranks in the unit!”

“Yes, Captain!”

Hayes shook his head, helplessly averting his gaze.

“This is a manor of a large landowner. It is said that he has thousands of acres of land, almost like a king. Tens of thousands of residents around here are basically their family's serfs, servants, or blood-related relatives.”

Then he recalled the burnt thatched huts, the piles of white bones in the cages, and the skinny corpses curled up in what could hardly be called houses, more like underground crypts, covered in mud.

“I heard my father say that these local tyrants are the most hateful!”

The young communications soldier next to him, carrying a long-range communicator, finished speaking and spat on the ground.

“They're just man-eating demons! Captain, why are we here to save these things?”

Hayes sighed softly.

“It's an order. The higher-ups ordered us to evacuate as many normal civilians as possible from here. This landowner's family was still sending messages not long ago. The regiment originally planned to send a vehicle to pick them up, but these people dawdled, insisting on packing up their property and businesses. This old master, relying on having a hundred or so bodyguards, didn't take the threat of genestealers seriously at all.”

“Then what are we doing here? Let them go to the safe zone themselves.”

“Who told him his uncle is a bishop? Regimental headquarters requires prioritizing the rescue of 'Ecclesiarchy and related important figures.' Just like that. Everyone, be careful. It seems this place has already been breached, but looking at the gate, it doesn't seem like there was much fighting... Search carefully to see if we can find any survivors, at least we can have something to report back.”

Hayes muttered to himself, using hand gestures to order the surrounding soldiers to aim at the windows and door seams, then gently pushed open the front door with the muzzle of his gun. As a company-level officer, Hayes insisted on using a rifle like the other soldiers.

The other two squads were also on standby near the side doors, and entered simultaneously after receiving instructions.

“No enemies.”

Soon, Hayes led more than thirty soldiers in through the front door, only to see that the foyer was still incredibly luxurious. The snow-white ceiling was covered in countless crystal lamps, and the walls were full of glass cabinets, containing strangely colored gemstone statues and exotic treasures. But beneath the magnificent exterior, there were more signs of struggle—shards of glass and spilled blood were everywhere, and there were more ominous stains on the carpet.

As they tiptoed deeper into the mansion, a rotting stench wafted from a certain direction. Hayes felt his bile rising, not for physiological reasons, but psychological ones. He was too familiar with this smell.

On the countless hellish battlefields he had experienced in the Maelstrom, this smell was his constant companion.

This was the scent of death.

Hayes made a tactical gesture, and the surrounding soldiers immediately realized there were enemies, so they dispersed to both sides of the corridor. Hayes then took a few people quietly to the location where the stench was coming from—the dining room.

The dining room door was open, and Hayes's eyes twitched when he saw the interior.

He finally knew where the missing landlord's family had gone.

The head of the well-mannered landlord in the portrait was hung on the wall, still staring with terrified eyes. The severed hands and thighs were also nailed to the wall, with intestines wrapped around them.

On the ground, bone fragments were scattered like shards of pottery. The dining room was like a chaotic slaughterhouse, with blood-stained bones and unrecognizable chunks of meat everywhere, scattered among the broken furniture. Only one thing was still intact, and that was the dining table. Around it was a pool of flesh and blood and clean bones. Hayes saw a beautiful girl placed on the dining table. Her expensive dress had been torn into strips, and her snow-white skin was exposed to the air. The lusterless eyes on her beautiful face stared blankly at the ceiling. Fat flies buzzed around her, and maggots wriggled in her disheveled hair. All of this was disgusting.

But even more disgusting were the things surrounding the dining table. There were about twenty of them, emaciated, wearing only dirty rags, their heads mostly bald or with only a few sparse hairs left. Some had a third hand mutated on their bodies, using clawed hands to grab the bloody internal organs from the girl's dissected body, stuffing them into their mouths and chewing vigorously, as if this was the supreme delicacy in the world, completely disregarding that this was the noble young lady they couldn't even glance at in the past.

Hayes turned his head, nodded again, and made a gesture. Three warriors then untied the grenades from their waists.

“Go!”

When the three grenades were thrown into the dining room, the twenty genestealers turned their heads in unison, revealing their blood-stained bestial faces and roaring.

Boom boom boom—

Before they could dodge, the grenades exploded, creating a deafening roar. Hayes, who was half-squatting by the door, could only cover his ears.

A few seconds later, Hayes stood up and cautiously walked into the smoke, raising his gun.

Looking around, there was no movement. The monsters were lying down, making slight whimpering sounds, most of them with broken arms and legs.

Suddenly, something wet and hot dripped onto Hayes's face. Hayes's eyes immediately swept over the ceiling above his head, and he found a black shadow hanging upside down like a bat.

He tried to raise his gun, but the shadow landed on his shoulders, pressing him heavily to the ground.

“Damn it!”

At the critical moment, Hayes swung his elbow hard, hitting the thing's face, then rolled over, raising his gun to block the thing's claws.

The blood-stained claws scraped across the gun, creating sparks, and then reached for his throat, but a bayonet timely pierced its body from behind.

In the painful howl, the monster flipped to the side. Hayes stood up with the support of Private Feton, and noticed that the one squatting on the ground was a shriveled monster. He was wearing the tattered robes most commonly worn by serfs, his eye sockets were deep, his teeth were stained brown with minced meat, and his eyes were filled with the xenos' characteristic vicious resentment. His body was covered in blood, and his abdomen was even torn open by grenade shrapnel.

But he was still roaring, with endless resentment.

“Lackeys! Beasts! Come on!”

When pointed at by the soldiers' guns, he twisted like a snake, grabbing a fragment of a wooden chair with one hand, trying to use it as a weapon.

咻—

A beam of laser light flashed, and the terrible creature's hand exploded, with bone fragments and fingers flying everywhere.